Vol.1 Ch.16 - Leins

After almost a month of staying in Wheats, we were all getting restless. Annawas worried about my arms, feeling guilty for the whole ordeal no matterhow many times we assured her it in fact was not her fault. Ed and mineworries lied in the fact that our parents could come here any minute,especially since Ed’s Uncle sent them a letter, presumably because of myinjuries.We spent our last day in Wheats meticulously writing a letter for our parentseach. The letters contained our goals and goodbyes to them, and we hadintended to entrust them to Mister Ridge so that when they do eventuallyarrive, at least their journey wouldn’t be for nothing. In the crack of dawn,Mister Ridge will have gone to wake us up for breakfast, but all he will seeare three letters, the third one being addressed to him. This was our way ofshowing gratitude. It also served as our proof of residence just in case ourparents doubt Ed’s Uncle.In the transport wagon that came in the morning, for the first time in ourjourney we weren’t the only ones in it. This isn’t all that rare, but it was veryodd for us, given our frequency of using this thing. The person sat with uswas a middle aged man with bald spots. His presence wasn’t all thatcomfortable, but we decided to be polite and strike up a conversation.“Hello, sir. How are you?” I asked first.“Oh, hello kids. I’m doing fine, but how are you?”He was obviously concerned about the injuries on my arms, so I at leastknow he’s sympathetic.“It was a scuffle, to say the least. But never mind that, this wagon leads toLeins, correct?”“Indeed it does, and my guess is you’re going straight to the hospital, haha!”His loud guffaws filled the wagon as he almost started cry-laughing from hisown joke. To be fair, it helped alleviate the tension, since his laugh is quitecontagious. We had spent our time in the wagon talking about all sorts ofthings, which lead to talks about our jobs.“…so that’s how we plan to make our grandpa’s brand well known all acrossTrivis Numerica.”“I can’t believe it! And to think, when I was your age, I could barely find ajob! Until I found the ITA, I was a nobody, really.”Our brows raised upon hearing those words, and we suddenly changed thetopic.“You’re an adventurer? Amazing! But what are you doing here of allplaces?”“Oh? Interested, are we? Well, to tell you the truth, I used to mostly explorenear the Kingdom of Carmen, but I’m on my way to visit Shaid’s temple allthe way in Sibirus.”“Sibirus!? That’s all the way on the top of the map! And what even is Shaid’stemple? I’ve never heard of such a place.”Before he could explain everything, we had made it to Leins, and as much asI wanted to hear more, neither party simply had enough time. Before we left,he told us his name, Linus, and hoped we meet again for him to finish hisstory.***Finally, we thought to ourselves as we strolled around the city weconsidered our goal. Thinking about it now, we made a lot of progress fromwhere we started, but this is definitely not the end. To be honest, it’s not eventhe beginning of our grand adventure, as we still need to attain Adventurer’sPassports and officially enter the ITA. I wonder if we could use Linus’ nameif the situation calls for it…Since we didn’t really spend much money when we crashed at MisterRidge’s place, we used the first day to travel like real tourists. The city islocated near the northern part of the country, sitting snug right between theriver Nadia and Leins Lake. I had heard rumors of water canals goingthrough the city, but we couldn’t find any, so I might’ve confused it with someother place.As we passed around the city I noticed many gazes pointed at me. Well, mybandaged arm to be exact. Since my left arm mostly healed, safe from somescary looking scars, I chose to let it get some fresh air. My right hand still hasbandages all over, though, since that was the arm I shoved into the wolf’smouth.“You should’ve worn a long sleeve shirt, Grim. These gazes are gettingannoying.”“In the middle of summer? I’d rather the world look at my sick scars thancook myself alive.”We walked around a bit more before choosing to finally check into an inn. Idon’t know if inns are always this comfy, but this particular one was veryeasy to get used to. The food was some of the best we’ve had yet (no offenseto anyone who’s cooked for us up until now) and the beds were made of acertain silk that almost felt like laying on clouds. Leins is definitely a luxurytown, so just imagining what we’ll see in the future kept me awake allnight…As we ate breakfast, we negotiated splitting our jobs. Anna mentioned she’llbe taking charge on the restaurant part of the plan, whilst we focused ongetting our Adventurer’s Passports. We didn’t like the idea of leaving her allalone, but she mentioned we’ll be helping her around the shop when we’vegot free time, and it’s not like we won’t meet up at the end of every day in theinn. With the plans having officially been completed, we went our separateways and hoped for the best on both ends.***The International Traveler’s Association (shortened to ITA) is a large, globalscale community which served as a hub of sorts for people who wonderedwhat’s outside of their current field of view. They are the ones who give youthe aforementioned special Adventurer’s Passports (if you’re qualified forthem, of course) and at times even give out bounties for finding out certainmysteries that plague the world.“So what’s the difference between a normal passport and an ITA issuedone?” you may ask? Well, my dear readers, it’s quite simple, or at least Ithink so. Basically, normal passports can be acquired as early as when aperson turns 7, but they can’t use it unless they’re accompanied by someonewho is at least 17 years of age, or in other words, a legal adult. Since Ed andI wish to travel the world without dawdling too much, we’ll be taking theITA exams in order to get out of here quicker. It’s a simple workaround to anotherwise meddlesome issue.Okay, now that we’ve all gotten caught up on how Adventurer’s Passportswork, let’s continue with the tour! The branch of the ITA that we visited washuge, and I mean that in an objective sense. Truth is, we had seen the buildingeven as we were entering the city. STOP GAWKING I told myself, but I justcouldn’t help it. It seems as though Ed was doing the same.“Ahem! Young sirs?” The ITA Agent manning the booth cleared his throat atus.“O-oh! Hello, mister! Yes, we’re here to apply for passports, where can weget some information on this matter?”The agent looked at us weird, and we were almost shooed awayimmediately.“Wait! Graal Thurs! We were asked to visit him! Can we at least meet upwith this person?!?” We pleaded with all our might.The agent stood there for a second before telling us outright:“I am Graal, who sent you?”“Arthur Gray, sir!”“So you’re the kids, huh. He did send a letter notifying me of your visit, but Ihonestly thought he was joking. That or Annie sent a prank letter in hisstead.”“Wanna meet up with Anna? She’s currently near the inn setting up shop.”“She’s what?” He couldn’t believe his ears.Right, he probably last saw Anna when she was very young, so if shesuddenly made her way all the way here without Arthur, he would obviouslyworry. After we assured him of her location and safety, we discreetlychanged the subject back to our original reason for coming here.“Sorry boys,” He shook his head, “The truth is, since I didn’t really expectyour story to be true I didn’t really set anything up in advance.”What a good friend you are to our dear Arthur, Graal.“No worries, as long as we get our passports, we don’t really care when itis.”“Sure thing, then your tests should be prepared in umm… let’s say a month?”We didn’t really mean that long, but hey, better late than never, I guess. As hesent us away we decided we’ll spend the month getting some extra travelmoney and simultaneously help Anna in the process. This way I got to limberup my arms and prepare for the test. First thing we did was go back to Annaand report to her our results thus far.She seemed delighted that we wouldn’t be rushing into it, going all Now youcan help me, haha! But both Ed and I knew she was just glad we got tospend more time together. Apparently she had already set up a contract for alittle homely looking one story building.This confused us at first. Why set up a small scale shop in a place whereeverything is big as all hell? But she reassured us with the reasoning that ina forest, a colorful branch will stand out.We still didn’t really understand her analogy completely, but if she washappy with it then we didn’t really care. Our first three days were spenttidying the shop up, but by far the most time consuming part was painting itred. This would definitely take a toll on me, so Ed and Anna had to do italone, which in turn made the process quite the slog.The first week wasn’t really that busy, and Anna even considered cutting ourlosses and buying a different, bigger house, but we talked her out of it. Andthank goodness we did so, since the second week made profits of historicalscale.Seeing a pair of kids set up a small shop apparently made the locals thinkwe’re doing some sort of charity work, so they went to help our cause. Well,we thought of correcting them, but seeing as we were a sort of charity(helping Arthur) and business was booming, we chose not to say anything.Two weeks in, my other arm was freed of its cast, and life was gettingcomfortable again. We decided to treat ourselves with some dessert afterdinner.“We really are getting pretty rich. Arthur’s sure to be happy about this!”“Yeah…” Anna replied with a melancholic expression.“Annie? I was meaning to ask…” Ed slowly checked to see if it’sappropriate.“Yeah, Anna, I didn’t really get to ask you this during the hike, but why areyou getting sad again?”“Hm?” She suddenly donned a quizzical expression as she replied, “Sad? Noidea what you’re talking about, but… I have been preoccupied in the pastcouple of months, haven’t I?”While not exactly what we had expected her to say, we still listened in andprepared for hearing the worst.“I wanna one day make Arthur’s a world-wide brand.” She took a deepbreath before confessing this, “When we started this journey to Leins I nevereven imagined saying this, but the more shops we set up the more plausible itseemed. I didn’t really wanna tell this to you guys since I was worried you’dstay to help with the project.”“You’d worry… about us not leaving you?” Asked Ed.“Don’t get me wrong, now! I really want you guys to stay with me, but I knowyou guys want to visit the world. It’s your life goal, and to me this is my goal.I don’t know if any of us can fulfill our wishes, but I certainly don’t want meto be the reason you throw yours away.”She spoke with a soft tone. Not mad or sad, but she wore a fuzzy expressionas she said this. Ed didn’t have anything to say, he seemed a bit perplexedabout the situation. Certainly, this wasn’t within our realm of expectations,but keeping quiet would just make her feel awkward, so I chose to motivatethem both.“Then how about I…” Ed tried speaking up before I interrupted him.“I like it!” I shouted, “A couple years down the line, I wanna see an Arthur’sall the way in Simpleton, y’hear?”“Wuh-Y-Yeah! That’s right! We’ll eat together in an Arthur’s all the way inMeridia, ha-ha!” Ed joined in too.“Alright! I’ll make you guys proud!” She proclaimed with a bashful smile.With us celebrating and toasting so loud that we probably bothered theneighbors, the evening was very lively, and we got back our happy smilingAnna once more. To us, it was like resuscitating a family member back tolife. The amount of happiness we felt at that moment was immeasurable, andwe couldn’t decide whether we never wanted it to end or if we wanted thelunch in Meridia to come quicker.As these thoughts occupied our minds, we welcomed our dear customerswith smiles ear to ear, the restaurant became a lot livelier than it already was(especially after we got Graal to send us some employees). We were onceagain back to how it was all the way in Stringwood. It was the same, but itwas different. We had changed, gained and lost, but we always stood byeach other’s sides.The days had started to pass by a lot quicker since that night, and just likethat, we stood in front of the ITA building, ready to take our tests and earnour passports after a long yet simultaneously short month.